From what I understand, whenever possible, take your shots in RAW rather than JPEG, as Raw is much easier to recover from if you have a bad exposure, or white balance. You cannot do that with a JPEG. Raw format is much more flexible on what you can do with the picture "after the fact"

The negative is that the file size in RAW is much larger so you will get less shots on the card vs JPEG and the speed of the shots (not necessarily in continuous mode, but just standard shooting) will be much quicker with JPEG as the file size is much smaller.

The Raw picture in its original form, really isn't perfect, it needs adjustments and alteration. And some people become a little lost with all adjustments that may be necessary. It can be a little overwhelming for some. JPEG however is a little more "finished" even when it is a bad shot.

That sounds about right. I personally shoot raw b/c of the crappy auto white balance of the D70. It's also true that raw can recover blown highlights that jpeg can't.

I don't find a practical difference in the processing speed shooting raw vs. jpeg unless I needed burst mode and were filling up the buffer. Your point is relevant with regard to P&amp;S, which I've heard become sluggish shooting raw, but the D70 doesn't have that issue.

On the other hand, Storage space is definitely something else with raw. With jpeg, most of my shots (Fine) were between 2-3 MB. Now I shoot raw, which usually come out to 5-6 MB, PLUS another 1.5-3.5 MB after processing them to jpeg, so my storage needs have tripled-quadrupled. On the plus side, because white balance can be fixed after the fact, my percentage of keepers has gone up quite a bit.

When shooting RAW it is just as important to get the exposure right, as it is when shooting JPG, or even film. RAW is not a cure all for a bad image.

However, the raw image does allow for greater recovery letitude with exposure, and white balance can be easily altered.

When you shoot raw, the in camera parameters (color, saturation, sharpness, WB, etc) are not fixed into the image data the way they are in a JPG. Instead they are written into the header of the raw data. But the exposure is fixed in the image data.

To process your raw images, you need to use the raw image converter that came with your camera, or some third party software, like photoshop. Generally speaking, when you open your images in the raw converter, it will apply the incamera settings by default. However, they are easily changed. Once you have the image the way you like it, you can then create a jpg.

It should also be noted that the dynamic range of the raw image is much greater than the incamera jpg, and this is the one thing that gives you greater control over the exposure than if you had a jpg.

The downside of raw is the larger file size, and, to some, the need to post process.

I think some of the benifits of raw depend on the camera you're using, and how good it's JPEG image processing is, too.

For example, I see very little benefit of trying to shoot raw with a little Konica KD-510z I have (even if it weren't so slow trying to shoot this way). It's got pretty darn good jpeg processing.

I once spent 2 full days trying to get a raw image to match the camera's jpeg image (I shot frames both ways at the same time to compare them), and I'm also talking about dynamic range (the JPEG file was better than what I could pull from raw), as well as white balance (the camera has pretty good WB).

One software developer had some theories on why the JPEG images look better (it's apparently using some interesting techniques for processing). But, I found virtually no benefit to shooting raw with this camera.

My conclusion was that the JPEG processing from this camera is superior to what I could get from raw, without a LOT of trouble post processing, with one exception.... I could get less visible noise by shooting raw and post processing (probably due to jpeg artifacts when compressing the noise).

On the other hand, I've found the opposite to be true with my Konica-Minolta Maxxum 5D. It's JPEG processing isn't as good as my Konica KD-510z, and I can get better images shooting raw and post processing with it (especially where Dynamic range is concerned). I've been able to pull out detail shooting in raw, that I couldn't get trying to tweak the JPEG images (especially where highlight clipping is concerned).

One thing to keep in mind is that raw converters will continue to improve. So, by shooting in raw, you could reprocess cherished images later with better tools as technology advances. With JPEG, you'll have less latitude for changes later, since the data from the sensor has already been processed.